i won't tell a soul
by mirajens
Summary: Shiro, Allura, and the things they have to keep between them. (au)


**note:** Guess whos the bitch who just watched princess diaries 2? I was supposed to submit this for shallurazine but it got too risque like, 2 sentences in.

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 **i won't tell a soul**

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He can always tell when it's time for her to leave.

In the aftermath of a hurried lovemaking, Allura's body is a juxtaposition of the tense muscles, straining limbs, trembling everything from mere moments ago and the form of her now. She lies supine on her front, exposing an enthralling back: dips and curves that her spine makes and when she breathes in, the indent of her ribs flash before retreating under flesh. Her hair makes clouds; tangled curls that have been pulled on and shoved at, matted to her neck, her forehead, her cheeks and her shoulders with sweat. The sheets pool just before the curve of her butt, lazily draped over them as if just an afterthought.

When it's time for her to leave, there are many tells, so slow and subtle it's as if she expects him to not sense when half of his heart is pulled out of his breast. It's the whole of her that goes back to being taut like a cat preparing to pounce. When she sits up and starts to grab for her bra flung by the pillows, there's an odd look on her face, one that Shiro doesn't want to call regret but he can't find any other word for it. He doesn't like to think she regrets this, not when she comes for it on an almost nightly basis. The straight set of her mouth isn't anything new but it's still bothersome how she presses her lips together instead of saying something, anything.

He wishes she wouldn't go. He wishes she never has to hurry out of his bed like this. He wishes they didn't have to sneak around as if loving each other is a sin.

"You know, if you keep acting like you've just committed a felony every time we do this, you'll hurt my feelings." Instead of watching her, he settles back on his pillows, his arms going behind his head. He thinks about smoking would love the acrid smell of nicotine rotting in his lungs right now so it would destroy the competition his heartache puts up. But Allura hates the smell of it and he's sure she will leave faster if she sees him move for the silver case on his nightstand.

"Your feelings? I thought there weren't supposed to be any feelings in this." She remembers that one, at least. How the handsome contender for her crown came up to her when she strayed from the state dinner into the rose garden and propositioned her. How they ended up in his quarters, a mess of too tight formalwear just barely ripped off to give way for skin on skin. How afterwards, when they lay on his damp sheets, they agreed that they'd leave their hearts at the door. How seven months later, she can't understand why leaving him is so hard and why he looks so torn whenever she has to go.

 _Well, that hurts._ He won't show it, though. He smiles at her, saccharine and played up. They like to do this little dance of being coy and cold and Shiro won't be the first to break his step. He's already laid too much of his pride down and she, none. "Sweetheart, I'm just irked that you don't give me a lot of time to appreciate that star-shaped birthmark on your ass."

"Don't be crude." The skin over Allura's nose crinkles with the look of distaste she threw at him over her shoulder.

"I'm glad you're still prim and proper even after I've had my face between your legs. There's something to be said for your consistency." _You're still the haughty princess from the first moment we met._ Sometimes (particularly, times like this when the intimacy still lingers and there is no need for pretenses), he wishes she would be something other than rushed and distant.

"Now you're just being annoying." She hates that he acts like this, as if he's punishing her for having her head right on her shoulders. So she might be fucking the man vying for her royal birthright but at least she has the decency to keep her emotions in check. Not like Shiro who makes it harder than it already is, more twisted than it needs to be. "If you're trying to irritate me just because you don't have the guts to say something, you're out of luck because I'm in no mood for childishness right now."

He knows she's baiting him, waiting for him to say what she's terrified to give significance to, and he just might bite because he's so tired of this bullshit little game. "I have the guts. If you're waiting for me to be the first one to tell you how it is, then you'll have it. I love you. You're a coward, Allura, but I love you." Naked now, in every sense of the word, he shifts so he's sitting closer to her; his front to her back so they can feel the sync of their pulses.

It almost makes her wince and it makes her ache. There's a reason they'd forbidden those words between them. It was foolish to want for things that could never be- needless torture and agony easily avoided. There's a shift again: her imposing space between them when he starts to put his chin on her shoulder. "You know you can't feel that way." Because they're two forces dragging towards opposite directions. Because she's reluctant what it would mean for her to acknowledge and return those sentiments and even more reluctant to act on them. She's one bundle of anxiety because she has so much to lose. Allura thinks: _he can say or do what he wants because he doesn't want to rule as much as I do._ Shiro is a man who's never had to work for anything in his life.

"But I do. Why would I need to pretend otherwise?" He doesn't bother trying to hide his exasperation at her pulling away. Trust Allura to push him out of her orbit because she's scared of giving in. Scared, scared, scared. That is what it all boils down to, not their bullshit pride. "I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. I wish the circumstances were different but they're not totally strict conditions. I would abdicate my claim for you. I don't want a fucking throne unless you're there sitting on my lap. I love my country but for once in my life I'd like to be selfish and love you."

It aggravates her, how easy this is for him, and how she struggles with duty and self-indulgence. "I can't do this, Shiro. You know I'm promised to another."

"Who? Some guy in a power point presentation you haven't met yet?" He's angry all over thinking about the law, the stupid fucking law. Even just a reach away from the seat of power he feels helpless against the constitution.

"Yes, that guy. A man I don't love or even met yet. A man I might stand to never tolerate, but must marry all the same. And what do you want me to do about it? Do you think I want to marry someone I don't know for the sake of politics?" When she feels claustrophobic from his all-encompassing presence, she pushes off the bed and hooks her bra and slips her panties back on before her gaze flits around for her dress. "Because if you think this is a heck of a party for me, you can go fuck yourself."

Shiro watches her pick up silver silk and put it back on with a caution that he'd forewent when he'd been taking it off her. "Then marry me, if you have to marry at all."

"What?" Allura had been in the process of pinning her hair back up with the sapphire-encrusted comb she found on the ground with her dress when he spoke, now her hand stills midair to accompany the comical expression on her face. "I'm not in the mood for jokes right now, Shiro."

He crosses his arms over his chest, his own look of defiance hardening his expression. "Then it's a good thing I'm being serious."

"That is absolutely the dumbest thing I've ever heard." And why is that? All she knows is that she despises him. He was a smart man with a compassion for their people that could rival her own. He was cultured but street smart, his charities were genuine and his work ethic was excellent. But it would never fit. "You don't understand my situation at all. I am a woman and every great thing I do will always be eclipsed by my gender. Government, parliament or even our current monarchy is overrun with men in charge who will never fully appreciate anything I do. I have so much to prove and what would everyone say if I just marry the sly man who's been trying to steal my throne?"

Shiro clicks his tongue, impatient. "Why are you putting that between us? What do their opinions matter?"

Allura seethes. _Us?_ There'd never been an us. Men never had to think about the things that kept her up at night, and it infuriates her. Now she rediscovers her righteous fury. "Let me tell you something, Lord Shirogane," All silver and brown, she slinks back to the bed with an expression on her face that is as predatory as it is angry. If Shiro were a smaller man, he'd choke on the look of her. Allura presses one knee onto the mattress, then another, making a slow crawl to be breaths away from him. "You are someone who knows to touch all the right places. You are someone who does awe-inspiring things with your tongue. You are someone I fuck, and nothing more." A French-tipped hand grabs at his chin, holding it so he stares right up at her. "I won't apologize because you caught a bad case of feelings. If this situation is inconvenient for you because you can't twist your head on right, I'll be all too happy to leave. But don't impose on me feelings that I don't want to deal with. I have enough on my plate and all my capacity allows is a good roll between the sheets."

Despite the hurt throbbing behind his ribs (or maybe because of it), Shiro stares back with all the contradiction he can muster on as little facial expression as possible. His hands have founds her hips the moment she was close enough but now he makes them slide up her side instead of bunching angrily by her waist. Soon they find the hidden zipper on the back of her dress, and then they're tugging down, down, until Allura's in the scraps of silk she calls underwear. He thinks he hates her. He can't stomach how much of a coward she is, and that she can say such cruel things in lieu of saying how she truly feels.

Soon, she is as naked as he is and they're doing the only thing they know. It's better than nothing, he supposes.

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 **note:** I literally have no idea if there's such a thing as a "state dinner". me me: sounds fake, ho. And don't you just love girls who can't fully submit to intimacy?


End file.
